


we're as close as we may ever be again

by thatiranianphantom



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: 45 wips on my google drive, 58 wips on my google drive, Angst, Breakup, Daddy Sonny, Exes to Lovers, F/M, Friends to Lovers, I don't know how to stop myself, Jesse being adorable, Rollisi Family, Take them down move them around, like at all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29368536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatiranianphantom/pseuds/thatiranianphantom
Summary: It was better this way. Better to end it before anyone got attached.That, of course, was what Amanda thought before her child's teacher handed her a family portrait with four stick figures labeled "Jesse, Billie, Mommy, Daddy."A Rollisi drabble that's getting extended because I truly do not know how to stop myself.
Relationships: Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr./Amanda Rollins
Comments: 14
Kudos: 65





	1. say something

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this was, like most of my WIPs, supposed to be a oneshot. But then it was ~gently~ suggested to me that I couldn't just leave it there. Fun fact, this is the first fandom I ever wrote for, back in my EO days. I have grown since then, I promise. 
> 
> The first chapter is just what appeared on Tumblr, and then it will be extended!

She is doing the best thing for them. She is protecting them. She is not allowing them to go through the same thing she did, because that’s what a mother does. 

Amanda Rollins tells herself that again and again as both her daughters wail. 

“I want,” Jesse gasps, her face red. “I want Uncle Sonny!” 

“I know, baby,” Amanda soothes, trying to reach a hand over to smooth her daughter’s hair. The little girl pulls away, anger in her eyes. 

“He had to work today. I’m so sorry.”

Jesse eyes her, eyes wet and posture defiant. She reminds Amanda so much of him. It’s impossible, but she’s seen that very same look on Dom- on Carisi, in court. 

“You’re  _ lying _ ,” Jesse cries. “He said we’d have a special day on Saturday. He  _ promised. _ ” 

He had. She’d heard about the promises Sonny had made to her oldest. A day at the park, a trip through Times Square to see the lights, that he’d teach her how to make cannoli and even let her help. Jesse had talked of nothing else for a week. 

But then, the fight had happened, and she was stupid and stubborn but it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Why would it have, when nothing in her life ever does? 

No, it was best she ended it now, before anyone got too attached. 

The statement sound ridiculous, given her sobbing child. And Carisi, who had not spoken to her in days. It was for the best, she knew this. Best the girls get used to him not being around anymore now. Best they not get attached. 

(Maybe if she had done that herself, she wouldn’t have spent the last three nights crying silently into her pillow.)

Jesse had woken early this morning, dressed herself excitedly, and waited at the door, even getting Billie dressed too when she wasn’t looking.

And when Amanda had told her Sonny wasn’t coming...Amanda doesn’t think she’ll ever forget the look on her five-year-old’s face. 

It’s a surprise to all of them when the doorbell rings. 

Jesse’s head snaps up, and she dashes to the door. Amanda barely has time to tell her not to open the door for strangers before she hears “ _ Uncle Sonny!”  _ and Sonny’s  _ ooof, _ as he’s hit with Jesse’s entire body weight. 

She doesn’t want to see him. She _ can’t _ see him. She’d been so sure he wasn’t coming, that his obligation to all of them was done when she broke his heart. But he’s here. He’s here, and she forces her way to the door to see him swaying both Jesse and Billie in his arms, murmuring soothing words. 

His eyes catch hers, just briefly, and she feels a fresh wave of pain crest over her. 

“You came. I knew you’d come,” Jesse’s voice is a wobble, and hers is no better as she breathes out a soft “Dominick.” 

He holds her gaze for one moment before turning back to the kids and pasting a smile on his face. 

“ ‘course I came, it’s our day! Ready to go?” 

Jesse cheers in response, and he doesn’t even look at her as he utters a “This still okay?”

She schools her face into an expression she hope is neutral and nods. He showed up. Even with her ruining what they were, he showed up. 

When they’re gone, Amanda takes a seat on her bed and yanks out the drawing from under her pillow, letting the tears fall again. 

She passes her fingers over the child’s stick figures, two big ones and two small ones. One of them has yellow hair crudely drawn and the other sports a line that she guesses is a tie. For the thousandth time, she reads the words over them in a child’s scrawl.

_   
_ _ Jesse. Billie. Mama. Daddy.  _


	2. with every piece of heart i've got

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love was big. Love was terrifying. Love chewed people up and spit them out, and she couldn’t do that to her girls. They had each other, and they were happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your warm welcome to the Rollisi fandom. These two crazy kids just can't get it together!
> 
> Here's a relatively happy chapter (I'm an angst writer, what can I say). Enjoy!

Contrary to popular thought, they didn’t start long ago. Well, maybe they did. Actually, she struggled to define with they started. One day, he was the annoying newbie with the ridiculous mustache, and the next, he was her partner. In all senses of the word but romantic until a few months ago. 

Amanda Rollins had nothing steady in her life. Family members, men, they came in and out. They said they loved her, but love had never given her much. It had given her two children that she treasured, but like all times, she was alone. She had been alone so long; she didn’t know what it was like not to be.

Love was big. Love was terrifying. Love chewed people up and spit them out, and she couldn’t do that to her girls. They had each other, and they were happy.

There were times, though. Times like when Jesse asked where her Daddy was, and why didn’t she have one like her friend Jessica?

And then there was Carisi, who was  _ there _ . Every significant moment - through birth, death, and all the things life put on them every day, there was Carisi. Having someone like that was new to Amanda, but it was like shrugging on an old coat once it was there. A bad choice of metaphor, maybe, but Carisi was warm, and supportive, and kind, and he wrapped around her in an embrace she let herself believe would always be there.

* * *

After Bucci, Carisi didn’t go home. He was there to make sure she was okay, he says. So he cooks them all dinner, walks Frannie, reads Jesse stories, and falls asleep on the couch. But there’s something _ different _ in it. Something more.Something about the way he holds her after nightmares just as tight as she holds him. 

On the third night, something that takes his hand to lead him off the couch and into her bed. She puts it under the pretense of convenience. He’d been rubbing his neck; the couch was old and uncomfortable; he was getting old. 

So for two more nights, he lies with her in her bed. And maybe nothing would have ever happened, but for one terrible nightmare, where his proximity means she’s pulled into her arms, the cotton of his t-shirt muffling her screams as he holds her. Her heart pounds, and even when the nightmare fades, she still looks at him, hair rumpled, bags under his wide, concerned eyes, and for once, for  _ once, _ she doesn’t think with her head when she juts forwards and seals her lips to his. 

He’s frozen for a moment, and then his lips move against hers, and it feels….different. Their lips tangle, and the only sound in the room is their breaths as they finally break apart for air. 

Hesitantly, he takes one hand and slides it under her shirt. His eyes search hers, looking for her to tell him to stop, but she shakes her head with the slightest smile and kisses him deeply again.

A finger draws along the bottom of her shirt, making its way delicately up, over her belly, and to the wire of her bra. 

She breaks off with a tiny whine of  _ Dominick _ , and their lips separate again. He looks at her. She can see the shine of his eyes as he looks at her, and it knocks the breath out of her. There is so much emotion, so much naked want, and something else, big and overwhelming and completely terrifying. 

It feels like he loves her.  _ Her _ , Amanda Rollins. And forget a rapist holding a gun on her; love is the scariest thing Amanda Rollins could experience, especially from Sonny Carisi, someone who loves more wholly and purely than anyone she’s ever met. 

He’d hand his whole heart over to her in a moment, his pure, good heart, and she’d crush it. She wouldn’t even mean to, but in her way, inevitably, if he gave her his heart, she’d break it. So she resolves not to give him the chance. 

“This is…” she gasps, laying her hands on his cheeks. “We don’t tell anyone, Sonny. This isn’t...it’s just fun, right? Just between us.”

She sees it in his eyes immediately, a light dies, and her chest physically aches. But better this, she thinks. Better this, which  _ almost  _ gives him what he wants, then crush both of them. Better to have him, maybe not completely, but enough, then break both of them.

So, hesitantly, she sees him nod, and relief floods through her.

“Amanda,” he breathes. “I...I l - “ 

She doesn’t let him finish, capturing his lips and working at his shirt, lifting it over his head, smoothing her hands over his chest. 

“Just us,” she whispers. 

And finally, he lowers his head to meet hers, pressing their foreheads together. “Just us,” he says. 

And then they don’t talk anymore.

  
  


* * *

  
  


It’s like being a teenager again, and for once, she’s grateful that he’s moved jobs. The sneaking around is, in some ways, fun. She meets him at lunch in the courthouse, his car, or, one time, in the squad room closet. They can’t keep their hands off each other. It’s such an overwhelming feeling, this ache for him. Once they start, it’s like a snowball rolling down a hill. He stays over every night. Jesse has never been happier; her teacher even comments on it. He plays with Billie on the floor, teaches Jesse to cook, and reads her stories at night. 

On more than one occasion, she finds Sonny and Jesse asleep in her tiny bed, her little daughter pressed into him, and it fills her with something she can’t quite define. 

And so on and on it goes, for months. Sonny leaves clothes, toothbrushes, work documents at her house. He takes the girls to the park with her on weekends, and the bed has an indent on the right side from his warm body. 

She wakes up in his arms most days, and Billie cries for him when he hands her off to Sienna in the morning. He has pictures of them now that litter his desk. On one weekend, she is slammed with work. He tells her not to worry, that he’ll make sure she has a quiet weekend. When she gets home, she finds food frozen in the fridge, a Netflix queue full, and her girls’ bags packed. He takes them to Staten Island for the weekend to visit his mother. The girls are bouncing with excitement, and he kisses her long and hard when he leaves. 

They text constantly; he sends pictures. The weekend is quieter than one has been in years, but it’s kind of nice. 

The girls come home bubbling about the weekend and how Nonna bought them a doll, and they saw Uncle Sonny’s old room and how the backyard is so  _ big _ . 

The fact that they call Sonny’s mom Nonna shoots another pang through Amanda. He just  _ fits _ into their life. Like he’s always been here. Like he’ll always be here.

And maybe he would have been. Perhaps it would have stayed that way, but for a knock on the door from Declan Murphy and those three tiny words she couldn’t say. 


End file.
